


whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same

by suzukiblu



Series: McGenji AU Week [7]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, M/M, Permanent Injury, Young Genji Shimada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 16:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15295686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Jesse’s got more scars than his soulmate even before he joins Overwatch; even before he joinsDeadlock. He was a rough and tumble kid with limited supervision who grew into a troublemaker who grew into a gang member who grew into a black ops agent--of course he’s got more scars.When he was younger he used to keep score, but he’s too damn old to bother anymore. He’s the winner by far, and it’s obvious. Sometimes he wonders what it’ll be like when he meets his match; if they’ll want to know the stories of all those scars or be mad at him for marking them up or making them worry or won’t care at all.He stops wondering the day he wakes up with more scars than he could ever count.





	whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same

**Author's Note:**

> Day Seven: Anything Goes. I wrote another soulmate AU because pomrania gave me a REALLY AWFUL idea for one after I’d already written the first.

Jesse’s got more scars than his soulmate even before he joins Overwatch; even before he joins _Deadlock_. He was a rough and tumble kid with limited supervision who grew into a troublemaker who grew into a gang member who grew into a black ops agent--of course he’s got more scars. 

When he was younger he used to keep score, but he’s too damn old to bother anymore. He’s the winner by far, and it’s obvious. Sometimes he wonders what it’ll be like when he meets his match; if they’ll want to know the stories of all those scars or be mad at him for marking them up or making them worry or won’t care at all. 

He stops wondering the day he wakes up with more scars than he could ever count. He spends a long time staring at the countless marks slashed across his face and body in the bathroom mirror, not quite able to wrap his head around them. Gabe’s gonna be pissed. He can never go undercover again, looking this marked-up. 

His right arm don’t have a single soulmate scar on it, but it’s got a warped red ring circling his shoulder. Jesse checks, and the little curved mark on the back of his wrist and the thin line across his palm are both gone. 

The arm’s gone, then. 

Jesse knows how amputation scars look. Between Deadlock and Overwatch, he’s seen enough of them in his life, and he used to wonder how it’d look on his soulmate if he ever lost a body part, since God knows he’s always been unlucky enough in this life for that to be a concern. So yes, his soulmate’s arm is gone. 

And both their legs, it looks like. 

Fuck. 

He don’t know what to do about this. What _can_ he do about this? Nothing, except never take another undercover mission again, apparently. 

He needs Gabe. Gabe’ll know what to do, or at least what to say so Jesse’ll be able to _handle_ what he can’t do. Which is anything, anything at all, there ain’t a _damn_ thing he can do--

Jesse sits down on his bathroom floor and talks himself down before he can have a damn panic attack. It takes longer than he’d like. Eventually, though, his breathing and heart rate get to someplace like normal, and he exhales heavily and then just . . . gets dressed. There’s new scars on his left arm, but his serape hides them fine, and if he keeps the brim of his hat low and walks quick, well . . . 

No, it’d take a fucking idiot to miss the soulmate scars on his face. It’d take a _blind_ fucking idiot to miss the soulmate scars on his face. 

Shit. 

He bangs his head against the wall a couple times, then puts his hat on and heads out into the hall, because fuck it, apparently this is his face now and he’s just gonna deal with that. 

It’s just other people’s reactions he’s not quite ready for, is the problem. 

“Jesse!” Ana says in horror, dropping her mug. Jesse grimaces and drags a hand down his _(sensitive, freshly-marked)_ face. 

“I know,” he says. “Ain’t mine, obviously.” 

“Your poor soulmate,” Ana says, reaching up to pull his hand away from his face and giving him a concerned look. She’s great. She’s wonderful. He doesn’t want to talk to her at all. “Are you alright? When did it happen?” 

“While I was sleeping,” Jesse says. “Just woke up this way. Look, I gotta--” 

“Gabe’s in his office,” Ana says, _bless_ her. Jesse gives her arm a quick squeeze and flees without another word. Gabe’s office is out of the way, so if he’s lucky he won’t run into anyone else before he gets there. 

He runs into Reinhardt, Torbjorn, _and_ Jack. Not a single one of them just lets him by without fussing over him and trying in their own ways to comfort him. He appreciates it, really, but he is a man on a goddamn mission and that mission is Gabriel goddamn Reyes. Nobody else is gonna do. 

Jesse escapes, eventually, and makes it to Gabe’s office. Gabe takes one look at his face and shoves aside all his paperwork. 

“What do you need, kid?” he asks. 

“I don’t know,” Jesse says, then sits down and cries _like_ a fucking kid. Gabe comes over and crouches in front of him and puts a hand on his shoulder, and Jesse just fucking _bawls_. He can’t imagine how much pain his soulmate is in right now. He can’t believe his soulmate’s even _alive_ right now, and the only worse thing than all these scars is the thought of them possibly disappearing. _Probably_ disappearing, even, because he’s seen the damage on his stomach and chest and spine and he just can’t imagine someone surviving that. He’s _never_ seen damage like that, except on dead bodies. The idea his soulmate is out there like this, _suffering_ like this-- 

“I got you, kid,” Gabe says, rubbing the back of his shoulders. “Let it all out now.” 

Jesse doesn’t think he could _not_. 

“I don’t. I don’t know what to do,” he chokes. “I just woke--I just woke up like this, I don’t know what to _do_. Gabe, they’re fucking _dying_ and I ain’t _there_!” 

“They’re not dead yet,” Gabe says. 

Jesse spends a long time in Gabe’s office, and Gabe stays beside him the whole time. It doesn’t help, but it helps. It’s _Gabe_. 

A few days go by, and Jesse gets acquainted with his new face. It’s a bit of a horror show even just as soulmate scars, so he can only imagine how much worse it looks on his soulmate, who’s got the whole mess and not just silhouette-copies of it. Jesse’s always had scars, though, and these scars mean his soulmate is _alive_ , so he can’t regret them. 

It is a right mess, though. 

Oh, well. They’re supposed to match, after all. 

On the fifth day, he runs into an exhausted-looking Angela in the cafeteria. 

“Oh,” Angela says, staring at his face with a stricken expression. “Jesse-- _when_ \--” 

“Few days ago,” Jesse says with an ease he only _mostly_ feels. “It’s alright, Angie, don’t look at me like that. Least they ain’t dead, yeah?” 

“No, that is not--” Angela hesitates, biting her lip as her eyes trail down his left arm, and Jesse frowns. 

“What?” he asks. She shifts her lunch tray into one hand and reaches out to move his serape, staring intently at the scars on his left arm. 

“Oh, Jesse,” she says. “Jesse, I--come with me.” 

She takes him to the intensive care unit, and he doesn’t know what to think of the comatose man behind the glass or all the tubes and wires and metal. 

Or the scars. 

“His name is Genji Shimada,” Angela says quietly. “We brought him in five days ago.” 

“Shit,” Jesse says, just staring through the glass at the rest of his life. 

The rest of his life is looking pretty rough.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
